my name is Paul & good few years ago I used to own a Midas Bronze (Q175JWW). I kept it for approx 9 years - & used it as my daily driver - but eventually the requirement for a working heater & more seats meant that I had to sell it (probably around 2002)
I loved the car & have nothing but good memories of it despite all the work required to keep it in fine fettle - the LCB exhaust used to fracture & need replacing pretty regularly, the ball joints seemed to need tightening/re-shimming just about every month despite me greasing them regularly! The car used to throw random temper tantrums like no other car I've owned - I remember the rear drum brakes seizing on one Christmas Day, the bonnet blowing off (into oncoming traffic) due to one of the hinges working loose, one of the rear springs deformed & ground away the inside of a rear tyres (I only discovered that one because my friend smelt the rubber burning when we were on our way to Harewod Hillclimb - not to compete I hasten to add) and I remember getting to Stoneleigh one year more or less completely deaf after a particularly mad dash down the motorway after I'd swapped the 1000cc engine for a 1275 - it went like the clappers but a relaxing cruiser it was not! Why I kept the car after all those incidents - the bonnet one especially could have been much more serious - I'll never really understand but at the time I wouldn't have swapped it for anything. My friends liked it as well I think (well most of them anyway) & nicknamed it "the squashed frog".
It's the car that started my interest in slightly unusual glassfibre British cars &, while my daily driver these days is a sensible(!?) Alfa 156 diesel, I have a 1985 Reliant SS1 tucked up in the garage. This has been the subject of a 4 year rebuild/modifying session & is now fitted with an 1800 16 valve Zetec engine instead of the 1600CVH that it was originally powered with. It's the same colour as my old Midas & has, rather obviously, been christened "the squashed frog 2".
Anyway my reason for joining the forum is that I was wondering if my old car is still around? I sold it ages ago to a chap in Holland called Theo Artemis & it was transported over there in the back of an empty tulip wagon, the UK registration was Q175JWW but it was obviously re-registered whilst in Holland, the colour was burgundy/dark red & the engine was a 1275cc A+ from a Metro.
If anyone knows anything then I'd love to hear what became of it
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